Consume Product

Here's something I shamelessly copied from online, but it explains it better than I could, which explains the role of carbs overall and why they're important for maintaining or building mass:


>Insulin is THE storage hormone and is produced in the pancreas when carbs are consumed. Carbs raise the blood sugar, insulin counteracts that to keep the healthy adult around 90bg/l (ish). It's like a key that opens the cell to accept all the goodies.

>Carbs = insulin

>Insulin = good absorption

>Good absorption = Gains

>So Carbs kiiinda = gains...but not that directly.

>There's also the order of nutrient consumption for energy:

>Carbs

>Fats

>Protein

>This is where Atkins came from. No carbs>body reverts to burning bodyfat>eat lotsa fat to not emaciate. This relates to the confusion with the Macronutrient "fat" and the body flub "fat". The order is however most important, in my opinion, for what gives you energy faster, and better sustained. Carbs do that best.

>Anywho, carbs are important. There are conditions/situations where they may have to be avoided or something, but I think the ketogenic diet for example, is automatically flawed when taken to the "NO CARBS AT ALL" extent. If you have the time and effort I think a good mix would be something including intermittent fasting if you're afraid of how many carbs you eat, and maybe carb loading if you compete in intense sports, and maintaining a moderate amount throughout the day otherwise.

This is actually a good summary and I came to realize this independently as I grew into lifting and also more labor intensive work.

Of course, in a place where so many people are obese as america, yeah a low carb diet can be very beneficial. I knew people that were fat and started doing no/low carb and it worked wonders.

However, if you have hit your weight loss goal, or you are already thin (or in general not trying to lose mass) in the first place, it can lead to diminishing returns at best and can be downright dangerous at worst. It also fucks with hormones:

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/03/14/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diet-cortisol-testosterone-men#:~:text=The%20average%20decrease%20in%20testosterone,Whittaker%20told%20the%20Markets%20Herald.

Of course, this study is for "high protein, low carbohydrate" diets. But if you're eating a low/no carb diet... how is it *not* going to be high in protein by default? Are you going to eat exclusively fat back, butter, and cheese? That sounds worse for you than the hormone fuckery.

Truth be told, our ancestors ate their fair share of carbs. Even the famous "meat eating savage" vikings had porridge as one of (if not THE) main staples of their diet. Before that you had the prehistoric man who ate honey, fruits, natural tubers, grains, surprisingly, and, more grisly, probably the partially digested food of herbivores they killed (gotta get what you can eat and every predator in the wild does it so why not humans)

All 3 of the main nutrients are extremely important, but the consumption of each varies enormously from person to person based off of both genetics as well as lifestyle. Some people can benefit from low carb, others benefit from high carbs (pretty much everyone can benefit from high protein though)